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Dr. Abdul El-Sayed announced this morning that he’s running for Michigan’s Senate seat in 2026, an opening created by Sen. Gary Peters’ announcement this year that he wouldn’t seek re-election.
El-Sayed, a Democrat, previously served as the Detroit Health Department executive director and has served as an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Department of Epidemiology. He lost a primary challenge to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2018.
“I’m running for U.S. Senate because in a state that built the American dream, it shouldn’t be this hard just to get by,” El-Sayed said in the video announcing his run.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow previously became the first major Democrat to enter the race.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether the arson attack on the house of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro constitutes a hate crime.
“Given the deeply troubling allegations that the suspect targeted Governor Shapiro based in part on his religious identity, the April 13 incident warrants immediate and serious federal scrutiny,” Schumer wrote in a letter today to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Schumer referred to revelations contained in search warrants made public yesterday about the arson attack suspect “harboring hatred” for Shapiro. The suspect also told 911 operators that Shapiro needed to know he “will not take part in [Shapiro’s] plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
“These statements — in conjunction with the timing of the attack during Passover, Governor Shapiro’s visible embrace of his Jewish faith, and the context of rising antisemitism globally and across the country — raise serious concerns about antisemitic motivation,” wrote Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S.
“Our federal authorities must bring the full weight of our civil-rights laws to bear in examining this matter,” he wrote, adding that the local district attorney hasn’t filed hate crime charges but has “acknowledged that Governor Shapiro’s religion appears to have factored into the suspect’s decisions.”
For her part, Bondi said yesterday at an unrelated event that she and FBI Director Kash Patel spoke with Shapiro after the arson attack on the governor’s mansion, which she called “horrific.”
“I firmly believe they wanted to kill him,” she said, pledging to continue to work with state authorities to do “anything we can to help convict the person that did this and keep them behind bars, as long as possible.”
Defense Department officials will soon brief Trump on a variety of options for him to fulfill his pledge to protect the United States with something modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense, according to U.S. officials and experts familiar with the initiative.
Like then-President Ronald Reagan’s push for the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was proposed to protect the U.S. from Soviet nuclear missiles, Trump’s call for an “Iron Dome for America,” more often referred to as Golden Dome, is a signature endeavor that could sew together multiple air defense systems with the idea of keeping the country and perhaps eventually U.S. assets around the world safe.
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Trump said in a Truth Social post that China wants to meet with his administration, but the president mentioned it as a brief aside and did not go into details.
“Had a very productive call with the President of Mexico yesterday. Likewise, I met with the highest level Japanese Trade Representatives. It was a very productive meeting. Every Nation, including China, wants to meet!” Trump said in the post. “Today, Italy!”
Trump has levied 145% tariffs on goods imported from China. A spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry said at a news conference today that it “has always maintained communication at the working level with its U.S. counterparts.”
“China’s position has always been clear, and we are open to economic and trade consultations with the U.S.,” He Yongqian said. “The unilateral tariff measures were entirely initiated by the U.S., and ‘the one who tied the bell must untie it.'”
Wire services including Reuters and Bloomberg News will no longer hold a permanent slot in the small pool of reporters who cover Trump. NBC News’ Hallie Jackson details how the ban could set up a battle between the executive and judicial branches.
The Trump administration released a series of documents yesterday that revealed new details in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man deported to El Salvador a month ago in what a government lawyer called an “administrative error.”
The release comes after weeks of pressure on the government to prove its contention that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. The Trump administration sent him to a notorious mega-prison in the Central American country as part of its promised deportation program of alleged criminals.
The Justice Department shared records, not previously made public, detailing how police officers in Maryland assessed Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang during a 2019 arrest. He had no criminal history at the time, which the documents also state, and his attorneys have denied that he is a gang member.
In a document titled “gang field interview sheet,” the Prince George’s County Police Department detailed how in March 2019 they approached Abrego Garcia along with three others for loitering at a Home Depot parking lot in Hyattsville. Abrego Garcia said in a court filing he was there looking for day labor work.
Read the full story here.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is set to meet with Trump today amid a tense trade standoff with the European Union over tariffs.
Meloni’s visit to Washington makes her the first European leader to meet with the president since he announced tariffs on European imports earlier this month.
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Trump has again blasted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, saying in a Truth Social post this morning that his “termination cannot come fast enough” after Powell said yesterday that tariffs were “likely to move us further away from our goals.”
“For the time being, we are well positioned to wait for greater clarity before considering any adjustments to our policy stance,” Powell said during his remarks.
The president, who appointed Powell during his first term, urged the head of the independent agency to lower interest rates, and he claimed Powell is “always too late and wrong.”
After he was elected, Trump said he would not seek to replace Powell, with whom he has frequently clashed over interest rates.
Federal Judge James Boasberg slammed the government for failing to comply with his court order to temporarily halt removal flights to El Salvador. He wrote “probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.” NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez reports it comes as the administration released new documents about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was recently deported to El Salvador. The White House says the documents show he was affiliated with the MS-13 gang.
Top Ukrainian officials flew today for a previously unannounced visit to Paris, where Europeans were assembling to plead Kyiv’s case to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.
The high level diplomacy reflects Europe’s mounting concern over the U.S. administration’s overtures toward Moscow, after the failure so far of Trump’s efforts to arrange a ceasefire in the three-year-old Russia-Ukraine war. The U.S. officials were also due to discuss nuclear talks with Iran during their visit to Paris.
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Trump administration live updates: President to meet with Italy's Meloni – NBC News
